"Ling Chen, I want you to dual cultivate with me and help me suppress the poison within my body."
A cold, crisp voice echoed beside his ear.
Ling Chen dazedly opened his eyes to see an aloof and peerlessly beautiful woman standing suspended in mid-air. Her expression mixed bashful anger with coquettish charm, and her eyes stared straight at him as if she intended to swallow him whole in a single bite.
"Ah? No way, I'm malnourished!"
Completely baffled by what she had said, Ling Chen instinctively tried to dodge backward, only to discover that he could not move at all.
"That's not up to you."
Suddenly, a wave of fragrant wind rushed into his embrace, and Ling Chen was tackled to the ground.
...
Spring lingered endlessly for several days without stop.
"It's gone, truly not a single drop left. Vixen, you can let me go now, right?"
"Shut your mouth!"
The woman let out a soft huff, holding a lofty position and radiating unquestionable majesty.
"I have already repaired your Dantian and meridians, consider it your payment for the hard work these past few days."
What did that mean?
Could it be...
He was originally the young master of the Ling Family in Luoyan City, blessed with a grade-three spiritual bone and hailed as the number one genius of Luoyan City.
Half a month ago, he had gone out by appointment with his fiancée, only to be ambushed. Outnumbered and overwhelmed, his meridians were shattered inch by inch, his cultivation was completely lost, his spiritual bone was even stolen from him, and in the end, he was tossed into a dry well.
Yet now, his previously shattered Dantian and meridians had recovered as good as new, and a mysterious energy flowed within them, radiating dazzling precious light and a misty glow.
Even the spiritual bone that had been forcibly uprooted and stripped away was now growing back once more. However, unlike his original spiritual bone, this one resembled a miniature sword, sharp and unmasked.
"This is a grade-seven sword bone!"
Spiritual bones were innate bloodline talents, divided into nine grades in total.
Grade three could be called a genius, while grade six was required to be a monstrous talent. As for anything above grade six, the entire Ancient Silver Moon Dynasty had not seen one in a thousand years.
As he was now, purely in terms of natural talent, he far surpassed his former self.
"Ling Chen."
The woman's cold voice rang out once more.
"I have temporarily suppressed my Dao injuries, but the residual poison has not been cleared. Three years from now, I will still need to unite yin and yang with you. But your talent is mediocre and your cultivation is shallow, so I shall bestow upon you another technique. You must break through to Deity Transformation within three years. Otherwise, the day we meet again will be the day your soul scatters and you die."
In an instant.
Ling Chen felt his divine soul tremble, and a section of memories appeared out of thin air within his sea of consciousness.
The *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter*!
Authored by a primordial supreme being, a True Immortal of the Nine Tribulations.
That was truly an immensely ruthless figure whose name shook through the ages, shattering myriad realms, sweeping across the universe, and ultimately ascending to the heavens and leaving this world.
Regrettably, the True Immortal of the Nine Tribulations had walked alone, having neither a cultivation partner nor a successor. The *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter* had been lost since primeval times, remaining unseen for a million years.
This was genuine, heaven-shaking fortune.
Wild joy surged in Ling Chen's heart, but suddenly his brow furrowed deeply.
Even with an immortal-grade supreme technique, achieving Deity Transformation in three years was still as difficult as ascending to the heavens.
The nine realms of cultivation: each realm was a world unto itself. In a mere three years, even someone with peerless talent would find forming a Golden Core a one-in-ten-thousand chance; wanting to reach Deity Transformation was nothing short of wishful thinking.
Not to mention the Luoyan City where he resided, even across the entire Ancient Silver Moon Dynasty, experts at the Deity Transformation stage were towering giants on one side.
Perhaps guessing what he was thinking, the woman's cold, ethereal voice rang out beside his ear once more.
"A mere immortal technique makes you this overjoyed? Open your eyes and look closely at what true cosmic fortune looks like!"
With a booming sound—
Ling Chen felt the heavens and earth shift, the stars and Dipper rotating.
He was clearly thrown into a dry well, but at this moment he actually appeared above a expanse of brilliant stars.
A massive bronze coffin hovered on the other side of the starry sky, surrounded by stars arranged in a pattern of a myriad stars paying court to the moon. As far as the eye could see, indescribable, colossal behemoths and sky-covering giant beasts lay prostrate before it.
Intricate and mysterious Dao patterns and divine talismans were engraved upon the coffin's surface, profound to the extreme, grim and terrifying.
"This is..."
"The Immortal Suppressing Coffin!"
The woman smiled coldly.
"This is a fortune-bestowed immortal artifact born alongside the heavens and earth when chaos first opened."
An immortal artifact.
This already exceeded Ling Chen's realm of comprehension; he had never heard of such a thing, nor had he ever seen one.
The woman's voice slowly sounded.
"The Immortal Suppressing Coffin is forged with three great heavenly talismans, possessing infinite profundity. Unfortunately, my severe injuries have not healed and my foundation is lacking; right now, the only one I can barely use is the first great heavenly talisman, known as Time Freeze."
"Put simply, anyone who enters the Immortal Suppressing Coffin can leap out of the river of time and remain untouched by the ravages of age."
Time Freeze!
This was a legendary supreme divine ability, beyond the reach of mortal power.
"Does that mean even if I stay here for a year or two, the outside world won't change in the slightest?"
"Yes."
Hearing this, Ling Chen could not help but feel his mind reel, wild joy surging in his chest.
With such a supreme treasure, he was bound to shake the four directions.
"There are many more mysteries within the Immortal Suppressing Coffin that you can slowly explore another day. Remember, three years from now I will emerge from seclusion, and you... remember to take good care of your body."
The woman vanished, leaving no trace behind.
Ling Chen secretly supported his aching lower back.A real man born between heaven and earth how could ever be willing to languish beneath others? Next time—next time he absolutely had to be on top.
Without further ado, he immediately began comprehending the *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter*.
Nine tribulations.
Corresponding to the nine realms of cultivation.
People often said that the grace of heaven was like the sea and its majesty like a prison, something cultivators feared and avoided at all costs.
Yet the *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter* did the exact opposite, pursuing a tribulation for every realm, drawing down heavenly tribulations upon oneself in order to break through the limits of each realm.
"As expected of a ruthlessly powerful figure who swept across the ages and looked down upon the universe. Not only was he ruthless to his enemies, he was even more ruthless to himself. It truly echoes that old saying: without destruction, there is no construction, and between life and death lies great fortune."
Ling Chen secretly admired this in his heart; the danger and profundity of the *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter* were indeed beyond imagination.
Unconsciously, he became as immersed in it as an old monk entering meditation.
In the mountains there are no years, and a millennium has passed in the mortal world.
As a layer of faint precious light covered his entire body, Ling Chen's cultivation finally broke through to Qi Condensation Completion. His bones became silver jade, his internal organs were gilded in gold, and his vital blood surged like a rushing great river.
This was precisely the peerless dominance of the *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter*.
Ordinary Qi Condensation practitioners drew in spiritual Qi and hid it within themselves.
However, the *Nine Tribulations Profound Chapter* used secret arts to temper and refine Qi, transforming spiritual Qi into spiritual liquid that gathered throughout the hundred skeletons of the body.
Comparing the two, the difference was truly as vast as that between clouds and mud.
In the outside world, the Qi Condensation realm alone would require a century of effort. But within the Immortal Suppressing Coffin, untouched by the ravages of time, to the outside world it was merely the blink of an eye.
Slowly rising to his feet, his aura deeply concealed and his divine brilliance restrained within, Ling Chen once again looked completely ordinary. Recalling the humiliation and torture he had suffered half a month ago, a flash of biting cold intent crossed his eyes.
"A bunch of cowardly rats hiding in the dark, I will drag you out one by one."